Orioles reliever Pedro Strop said he’s never lost his confidence even through some rough outings in the first three weeks of the season.

And the Orioles’ confidence in Strop to preserve a one-run lead in the eighth inning of their 4-3 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday night was rewarded in turn.

“That was huge because that was the game right there,” Strop said afterward. “I’ve been struggling lately and that’s good to have some confidence back, and I feel even better because I gave my team the opportunity to win. Who knows? We might be playing still. But I feel pretty good. Like I said before, all those innings that I pitched before, I felt good. … The result was just wasn’t the one we wanted.”

After Brian Matusz, who pitched a perfect seventh inning, walked the leadoff man in the eighth, Orioles manager Buck Showalter called on Strop – who had allowed four runs over his past three appearances.

Strop fielded a sacrifice bunt from pinch hitter Rajai Davis and threw to first for the first out, then he got slugger Jose Bautista out on a grounder to short, sending the tying potential run to third.

He then walked Edwin Encarnacion, who earlier hit a three-run homer off starter Miguel Gonzalez to account for all of Toronto’s runs.

But it was Strop’s strikeout of Melky Cabrera on a full-count high fastball that might have been the most clutch moment of the night. It helped preserve the Orioles’ 100th straight regular-season win when leading after the completion of seven innings.

“All this [stuff] and all the things that have been happening to me, and I still have my confidence because I’m honest with myself and I know that I’m making good pitches,” Strop said. “If I was making bad pitches and didn’t have my stuff, I might be worried and maybe my confidence would be down, but my confidence is up because I know I’m making good pitches. When the starting pitchers say that when the game is in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning that it’s over, that means you can trust in your stuff.”